Ragnarok : the age of fire and gravel
384 CONCLUSIONS.
the island ; it rose out of the sea, it was rocky ; it was the broken crest of a submerged mountain-chain,
What became of it? Here again we have a tradition of its destruction. We read that, after Adima and Héya had passed over this rocky bridge—
“No sooner did they touch the shore, than trees, flowers, fruit, birds, all that, they had seen from the opposite side, vanished in an instant, amidst terrific clamor ; the rocks by which they had crossed sank beneath the waves, a few sharp peaks alone remaining aboye the surface, to indicate the place of the bridge, which had been destroyed by divine displeasure.”
Here we have the crushing and instant destruction by the Drift, the terrific clamor of the age of chaos, and the breaking down of the bridge Bifrost under the feet of the advancing armies of Muspel ; here we have “the earth” of Ovid “settling down a little” in the ocean ; here we have the legends of the Cornishmen of the lost land, described in the poetry of Tennyson ; here we haye the emigrants to Europe cut off from their primeval home, and Jeft in a land of stones and clay and thistles.
Tt is, of course, localized in Ceylon, precisely as the mountain of Ararat and the mountain of Olympus crop out in a score of places, wherever the races carried their legends. And to this day the Hindoo points to the rocks which rise in the Indian Ocean, between the eastern point of India and the Island of Ceylon, as the remnants of the Bridge ; and the reader will find them marked on our maps as “ Adam’s Bridge” (Palam Adima). The people even point out, to this day, a high mountain, from whose foot the Bridge went forth, over which Adima and Héva crossed to the continent ; and it is known in modern geography as “ Adam’s Peak.” So vividly have the traditions of a vast antiquity come down to us! The legends